House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) received a vote of confidence but is already preparing for another rocky session with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) leading the internal opposition to his leadership.
With the lower chamber preparing for President-elect Donald Trump to take the reins in January, Johnson won the GOP nomination to remain in his top post on Wednesday.
Come the final speaker’s vote in January, Johnson will need nearly every vote from his slim majority in order to keep the powerful position. But Greene has indicated she may not back the Republican leader, likely putting his fragile coalition in jeopardy.
While talking to the press on Wednesday, Greene blamed Johnson for not helping deliver a larger House majority during the 2024 elections. The Republican Party staved off Democratic gains to retain their majority in the lower chamber last week, but Greene wasn’t satisfied.
She criticized Johnson for the results, saying he “fully passed the Biden-Harris agenda,” adding, “We should have a major majority, a super majority, but we don’t.”
“I think that’s based on the performance of this Congress. This Congress has had a lot of failures in the eyes of our voters, in the eyes of the American people,” she told CNN.
Greene had previously argued that even the razor-thin majority House Republicans enjoy is due only to “the people President Trump pulled across the finish line in this election.”
Greene has railed against Johnson’s leadership, primarily on the basis of his support for federal spending deals, since he became speaker in October 2023.
She introduced a resolution to oust the Republican speaker in May, saying that Johnson had broken promises by endorsing President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion spending proposal that didn’t include border security measures many conservatives had requested.
After Johnson supported a $1.6 trillion deal to fund the government and avert a federal shutdown in September, Greene announced firm opposition to the plan, saying it funded the Green New Deal and “all these horrific things that people are sick of.”
This time around, Johnson appears to have Trump solidly in his corner, which could give him an edge when the speaker’s vote comes up in January.
The president-elect said he “100%” backed Johnson during a during a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers on Wednesday.
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While he is friendly with Greene, Trump indicated that, unlike her, he was pleased with how the House GOP performed during the elections.
“We won, which is great because Republicans aren’t supposed to be winning the majority,” he told lawmakers.
